and never communicated with hamas. right now, there was a negotiated settlement between hamas and israel. it didn't take place directly. it took place through egypt, the united states, but hamas feels it gained recognition. there were more than a dozen foreign ministers who came here, came to gaza, and paid homage to the hamas leader. something he never had before. they were able to fire rockets from here in gaza and hit areas around tel aviv and jerusalem, something that hadn't happened before. hamas was losing popularity on the street in gaza, and now its popularity is skyrocketing. so to give you an example, tomorrow hamas has declared a public holiday, and there are expected to be victory celebrations across the gaza strip. >> richard, in terms of the way that israel couched its agreement to this, i wanted to highlight the fact that they named the united states as the party that asked them to do this, essentially saying, or directly saying, they acceded to american will on this. why do you think they stressed that